Audio Builders Workshop Teaches Soldering Basics
Open Hardware – DIY Soldering Kits

© Lead Image © Andrey Kiselev, 123RF.com
When it comes to DIY maker projects, if you don't know how to solder, your options are limited. Audio Builders Workshop remedies this with two kits, plus workshops, to give you hands on soldering experience.
In the maker movement, the ability to solder is one of the great dividing lines – rather like compiling your own kernel in Linux programming. Just as a programmer who has not compiled a kernel is often limited, unless you know how to solder, the work you can do is limited, as well as the do-it-yourself (DIY) kits you can assemble. To help bridge this divide, Audio Builders Workshop (ABW) [1] has developed two kits to teach soldering basics: a metronome that emits a regular number of beats per minute to mark the musical frequency of sound, and a low pass filter that controls sound levels. Armed with these kits, ABW has held soldering workshops around Boston. In the last year or so, it has also started making the kit available to other interested groups and holding workshops from Anaheim to Frankfurt.
ABW is a special interest group of musicians, educators, and tinkerers in the Boston chapter of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), sponsored by Analog Devices, Inc. and Mouser Electronics. ABW was founded by Owen Curtain, who explains, "I held the first Audio Builders Workshop as a way to learn more about product development. When 50 people showed, I decided to continue with more events. Within a year, we had held lectures on operational amps, a Compressor Hackathon, and a DSP lecture series. With small groups, we also built microphones, DI boxes, and microphone preamps." This work is carried on by a small group of regulars plus volunteers recruited for specific events.
Brewster LaMacchia, a core ABW participant, notes that the group has "been focused on DIY rather than specific open source thinking. While the source of the hardware is there, I don't think there's an open hardware license on most of the commercial DIY company offerings." However, for all practical purposes and by any definition, the kits can be described as open hardware even without the formality of a license. Moreover, the build instructions are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Cairo Dock 3.6 Now Available for More Compositors
If you're a fan of third-party desktop docks, then the latest release of Cairo Dock with Wayland support is for you.
-
System76 Unleashes Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta
System76's first beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 is an impressive feat.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.